Blog

Information, news, opinions, and the occasional rant …

A very interesting management appointment was made last
week. Strictly speaking it’s a development in the sporting
world, although professional sport is undoubtedly business.
The name André Villas-Boas is likely to be tripping off the
tongue of football followers during the next few months. At
the age of 33, without any previous career as a football
player, he’s been appointed as the new Chelsea coach at...

I’m a great fan of social media. I use LinkedIn
extensively. I have a Facebook page for my business and also
a personal Facebook account. I use Twitter too.
Social media can be time consuming, but professionally
(LinkedIn especially) it’s of enormous value.
Interestingly, many employers will now check out the
LinkedIn profiles of candidates submitted to them. If your
LinkedIn profile needs improving (or horror of...

I read a great quote this week (thanks to Chris Barrow –
@coachbarrow): -
“Recession is a voluntary psychological attitude adopted
by those who enjoy the security of tribal pessimism”
To take it one step further, I’d ask the question –
“are we still in recession?”
It’s difficult to tell. There are so many conflicting
stories in the media each day. We’re told the economy is
growing, then...

I recently came across an interesting article headlined
“The Cold Call is Dead”
–http://linkd.in/gTygz1[http://linkd.in/gTygz1]
In this day and age, there are many other ways of getting
through to the person you want to speak to, other than a
‘cold call’. Some people prefer to send an email, others
a text even – although that’s a bit informal for an
initial point of contact. One client of mine...

The emphasis on mobility is enormous. We have highly
sophisticated cars with fantastic levels of comfort and
gadgetry. We are encouraged to make use of public transport
which is supposedly becoming more streamlined and modern
through continuing investment (funded by some pretty
exorbitant price increases too).
We have all the technology, equipment and toys to enable us
to work and communicate whilst being mobile – smart
phones, iPads,...

In our cynical world, it generally takes a lot to shock me.
However I was reminded the other day how much some companies
regrettably still operate in the ‘dark ages’.
I was talking to someone who worked for a company that
changed their place of work. This meant that this person had
to drive on a daily basis to the new office – a daily
commute...

“You’re an Inspiration” … is what Alan Sugar said to
the final candidates on Junior Apprentice last night. And I
agree! I’ve watched all the series of the Apprentice, and
enjoyed this latest series featuring the Junior Apprentice
most of all. Why? Because almost all the candidates – and
especially the finalists – had a refreshing attitude of
‘go-for-it’ enthusiasm matched by common-sense and a
drive to...

One of the challenges in executive search is dealing with
‘counter-offers’. These are often made to candidates who
have been headhunted, by an employer who realises at the
point of resignation they don’t want to lose this
employee. So they make a counter-offer, generally consisting
of a salary increase or promotion. Sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn’t. It makes life difficult for the
employee, whose head is...

Good article in this month’s Recruitment International
about the importance of updating your CV. It points out that
there are too many ‘vague’ CV’s which are generally
out-of-date as so many people claim they haven’t enough
time to update their CV’s or that as they’re not
looking, it’s not necessary. Only around 10% of
job-seekers apparently update their CV’s every 1-3 months.
However by devoting as little...

One of my LinkedIn connections sent me a great article
titled ‘A simpler way to make it simple’. It highlights
a policy at Tesco, who insist that for any new innovation,
one of the three criteria is that it must make things
simpler for staff. In order to achieve this, it makes and
holds people accountable for simplicity. How simple is
that?!
So often, unnecessary complexity runs...